How to Become a Recognized Expert in Your Field

It’s possible to boost your personal brand by establishing a reputation as an expert in your niche. Experts are sought after, they get noticed, they can command higher fees for their services, and they get interviewed by journalists. In brief, becoming a recognized expert can help you achieve your business goals using less effort.

Until recently, becoming a recognized expert took decades and only the MBA degree or the academic degree granted the status of the expert but today even if you got your diploma through online classes you can be easily perceived as the expert. Showcase your knowledge in online and offline events, choose the right strategy, and start your journey towards becoming a recognized expert using online marketing and social media.

Just say you want to be known as the expert on cutting machines then you should:

• Write articles about your niche and publish them on your website and blog. Your website is the virtual headquarters of your business. Every promotion leads to your website, so make sure your articles are visible and easy to find.

• Now you should think about promoting your articles. There are many ways in which you can do this. First, let’s take a look at LinkedIn. Add your blog URL to your profile, click on “Additional Information” in your profile, and add a link to your blog.

• Use the “update” feature – to share your blog posts within your network. Include the title of your post and a link. People linked to you will see such updates on their profile pages after they log in and they’ll receive your updates from LinkedIn on a weekly or monthly basis.

• Join groups. There are thousands of groups on virtually any topic imaginable. Once you join your chosen groups, you can participate in discussions and share your expertise. Treat this area as a typical forum, be helpful and don’t spam.

• Use Twitter to spread the word about your articles. Ask your webmaster to add a Tweetme button to your website and know that Exposure Matters. With this, you’ll be able to regularly tweet your articles.

• Retweet articles by other experts and they will do the same in return. Reciprocation is one of the most important rules of persuasion.

• Follow other experts on Twitter. Create your own Twitter list or follow one of the existing lists.

• Provide an e-course or offer a newsletter. Send regular emails to your subscribers supplying them with useful content.

Follow these steps and you will notice a difference. I’ve done it many times for my clients and for my own purposes, so I’m certain that it works. If you’re consistent and patient, you will see results.

Listen to this story

Every dream starts somewhere, and around a decade ago, it began in a third-floor banquet room at the Doubletree Hotel in San Jose, Calif., where Steve Lane was speaking to a crowd of more than 100 people who have gathered to take part in an event described on the schedule in the hotel lobby as an “E-commerce Seminar.”

Lane, a mechanical engineer, looked a bit like a TV weatherman, with slicked-back hair and a dark tan, and he knows how to explain the dream in ways that are easy to understand. “We’re talking about setting up an income that will allow you to go to Hawaii, kick back, run your feet through the sand, and make more money by the time you come back than you had when you left!”

“The Internet is the wave of the future,” Lane said. “Look at Amazon.com. It was back then a 4-year-old company, founded by Jeff Bezos, who started out with hardly any money to his name. Today, Amazon still has not made a nickel in profit, but Bezos is worth more than $8 billion.

“Now, my net worth as an employee at an engineering firm didn’t go from nearly nothing to $4 billion in the last four years,” he added with a down-home touch. “But tonight, we’re going to talk about a way that you and I, without significant investment, can take part in the phenomenal growth of the Internet.”

Lane went on to describe how a group of “venture capitalists” were preparing to roll out a new “virtual mall” on Sept. 1 that year – one that will make it possible for anyone “to net around $3,100 per month, every month” he says simply by getting a few friends and relatives to buy household products over the Internet. The venture capitalists behind the project, he explained, are members of the Van Andel and DeVos families – the founders of Amway – but this will be part of an entirely new company they’re creating, called Quixtar.

Amway on the Web: The idea isn’t as far-fetched as it might seem. At a time when many e-commerce sites are just now discovering concepts such as viral marketing, incentive programs, affiliate schemes, and community-building to acquire and retain customers, Amway has been using these same tactics as the foundation of its direct-selling business since the company was founded in 1959. They knew how to get their company “Investor-Ready”.

“Amway was way ahead of its time,” says Seema Williams, an e-commerce analyst with Forrester Research. “It’s almost as if they spent all these years operating in the wrong medium.” Maybe, but Amway’s offline effort remains one of the wonders of the retail world: Today the privately-held company embraces a global network of 3 million “independent business owners,” or IBOs, active in more than 80 countries, who distribute and sell more than $5 billion worth of Amway products each year.